Information Consolodation

[shadragon]

A HUD (Heads Up Display) is supposed to present the pilot with the bare bones info they need to fly and operate their vessel. The pilot needs to be able to discern a situation at a glance. I'm finding the amount of info displayed on the E: D HUD to be way more than necessary. Not only is it repetitive, but I have to look in several locations to get the info I need. In order to introduce a more elegant solution, here's some examples and a few suggestions to discuss.

Today, when I jump to another system I see the target system info no less than four times as shown here.

I know I'm jumping to another system, I just pressed the button to do that! Not to mention I'm hearing "Frame Shift Drive charging" in my headphones. I don't need to see a jump confirmation every time up in the INFO box. Star class is displayed in the INFO box as well. When exploring outside of the bubble and dealing with long system names, this can create two lines of wrapped around text in INFO that is hard to read. I suggest deleting the INFO text entirely, moving star class to the main display on the HUD and removing the secondary star system name info on the center reticle like this:

This also simplifies things for explorers, presenting needed info in one place.

When flying to Maia to take part in the CG, I saw this screen:

The red text is a good indicator of trouble, but again, I need to look in several places to put together the tactical picture. By the way, I know how to abort a jump (if you don't you deserve to end up in a war zone) and this extra text takes up a lot of space that could be used to give me more needed information.

Below, I added "WAR" to the end of the system state, then presented the other info that I think is needed.

Also, when carrying illegal goods, that overwrites the CLEAN / WANTED status currently. I need to know if I am CLEAN or WANTED in a system >and< if the goods I'm carrying are illegal like this mockup:

This cleans up the screen significantly. I now know at a glance what my situation will be in that system. If I need more info I can go to the left or right screens, system or galaxy maps as needed. However, I have enough info at a single glance to let me make a decision as to whether I need to change my plans. It's at the center of the screen and I can take it all in a lot more efficiently.

What do you think? Am I missing anything necessary?

 

[Adhock]

Several things actually.

Honestly you're the first person to actually take a good hard look at your instruments and complain there's too much as opposed to the near two dozen threads I see about people complaining that there need to be additional QoL features to the HUD and make it even MORE convoluted and complex then you point out. Mostly because they just stare out the window and try to fly by Visual Flight Rules rather then paying attention to their instruments.

Piloting a machine is not supposed to be easy. They are large complex objects. Because of this complexity, there is no guarantee they will be well designed. Thus redundancy is used in order to ensure that no matter where you look, you find information you need. But also due to this complexity, you also need to know where to look and that comes with practice.

Actual pilots are trained to constantly glance and look at everything around them in the cockpit. Not just out the window. Their eyes should never remain in one location for a few seconds at a time so having such information in several redundant places helps keep it fresh in their memory since they're processing several information sources at once. Flight speed, direction, fuel level, navigation, orientation, location of nearby hazards, radar, other aircraft, proximity to hazards in general, clearance, lights, weather, g-forces, power levels, engine status, hull status, cabin pressure, crew status, weapon status, ammunition count, craft loadout, the list goes on. It can be extremely taxing to keep all this in mind AND fly the craft.

Also if you're carrying illegal goods, your clean status should go to "illegal" instead of 'wanted'.

 

[Der Zeitgeist]

Some decluttering would certainly be nice. I would prefer to have all of that info on the front left screen, which was always the screen that shows the next navigation target. There should be enough room there to present star class, status etc...

 

[shadragon]

Honestly you're the first person to actually take a good hard look at your instruments and complain there's too much as opposed to the near two dozen threads I see about people complaining that there need to be additional QoL features to the HUD and make it even MORE convoluted and complex then you point out.

Exactly. As time goes on, the HUD will get more and more "convoluted and complex," to use your words. So let's take a holistic look at it now, make space for future updates and consolidate what we have to a usable and more elegant solution.

I'm not advocating deletion of anything (save repetitive info.) All I'm looking for is a more logical layout so we can get all needed info in one place.

 

[Lordfrith]

ah i just posted a thread about this today as its something my wing was discussing last night. your post is considerably more detailed than mine so i'll just add a comment here

I personally find the new info very helpful but i agree it looks a little 'tacked on' and having the same info 4 times seems a bit messy. Initially i was thinking that it would be fine to add new info to the existing displays (either top left or bottom right) but i quite like OP's mock ups of having all that info above target reticule.

with reference to making space for future development, it could be possible that these new HUD elements are placeholders for a more complete overhaul (dunno if theres one planned).

 

[QUASAR-M]

You CMDR, are a genius. I was thinking the same thing, precisely. I guess I'm a genius too?

I don't know who is in charge of the HUD at FD and if that someone pours any thought on how's best to present and segregate the data on HUD. But I would definitely fire him/her and I would most certainly put you in charge of the HUD.

Sadly, I'm just an ordinary CMDR ...

 

[shadragon]

That's a bit of an over-reaction. No one needs to be fired over this. From personal experience in gaming and software design overall, user interfaces get more cluttered with each release of any software package. Unifying things as you go along is almost never a priority in most institutions. The staff at Frontier do an excellent job overall, but they are a small dev team with limited resources and sometimes things slip into the cracks. I'm just pointing out what I see to be an issue while asking the community for their feedback as well.

Besides, Frontier can't afford me.

 

[QUASAR-M]

I'd rep you again for this answer . I like you CMDR. Indeed I was too harsh. See you out there in the "black" yonder.

 

[Adhock]

I'd rather they not touch it until such the next upgrade. There's already too many Pilots who ignore their HUD as it is.

If they shift things around now to make room there will be temptation to add in features that aren't necessary. By waiting until the next upgrade, they can better design it to cut out the unwanted fat that would gunk up the interface more by only placing in what is necessary.

Also by waiting. It will be more apparent what is redundant and can be consolidated rather then trying to figure it out now and potentially remove something that was critical by mistake. Then we spend the next four patches trying to fix what was missing.

Sometimes trying to fix something preemptively can cause problems down the line when a redesign is necessary.

Should they redesign the HUD? I'm all for a better interface but not one that's going to be redesigned anyway when they're going to add something.

That's just redundant. And this thread is aimed at reduced redundancy yes?

 

[Kaocraft]

YES. All of the +1s. I would like to see the info in the lower-left field instead of pasted across the front of your windshield, though. And if it's not going to go in the lower-left box, they should get rid of the lower-left box and use the space for something else.

 

[Esral Sa Nikto]

Very good ideas here. The HUD needs some attention. Better placement of info. +1

 

[Bane Six Echo]

I could not agree more with the idea that the HUD is becoming a cluttered, 'tacked on' mess.

I'd argue that the new, centered info box isn't necessary. Move that information to the existing Info panel, or to the existing target info panel in the bottom left. Perhaps the target info panel and the power/fuel panel in the bottom right could expand upward when needed, and contract back down to their default size when there isn't any additional info to display.

And for the love of Aisling, please shrink the wingmate icons at the top center way down, like way down. They're obnoxious at the moment.

 

[GodBlock]

Very nice to see suggestions along with any criticism, something surely lacking in all the negative threads we see day in day out.

Also agree that the hud is displaying too much of the same information, and I agree with your ideas, especially your last image, really like it

 

[Pinkie]

Simplifying the HUD and putting needed information in one place is an excellent suggestion.